Jerrod Penna, Wuyang Hub
Author information
a Department of Agricultural Economics & Agribusiness and LSU AgCenter, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
b Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
E-mail: hu.1851@osu.edu (Wuyang Hu, corresponding author)
Abstract
Cheap Talk (CT) is a mainstay technique among stated preference practitioners to reduce Hypothetical Bias (HB). The usefulness of CT may be questionable in online surveys due to the limited control researchers have on participant engagement. In the context of an online choice experiment on hotels, we compare a control group of respondents who receives a CT script as a traditional passage of text versus a group who must answer an attention-check question to verify their comprehension of the script as well as another group who receives the CT script as a video and then answer the attention-check question. We find that compared to the control group, simply offering the attention-check question reduced willingness to pay (WTP), and those who answer the attention-check question correctly behaved differently to those who did not. Overall, video CT script is shown to improve attention and be more effective in reducing potential HB than a text-based script.
Keywords
attention-check, cheap talk (CT), choice experiment, hotel choice, Hypothetical Bias (HB), travelers, video, willingness to pay (WTP)
Jerrod Penn, Wuyang Hu. Videos Improve Attention and Cheap Talk in Online Surveys. Front. Econ. China, 2021, 16(2): 347–376 https://doi.org/10.54605/fec20210206
